Midair

In Manhattan in 1942, six-year-old Sean and his sister Mary find their father unexpectedly waiting to take them home from school. He has been in a mental institution. As they don't have a key, the three enter their tenement building by the fire escape. Their father washes the windows. A buzzer rings and three men from the mental institution come for Sean's father. He takes Sean and climbs out on the windowsill. The men pull them back in. In the next scene, Sean is finishing college at twenty-two and getting married. He remains a boy, dreaming of people jumping out of windows, with no idea what the dreams mean or where they came from. His wife gives him two sons. By 1966, Sean has a lover. He goes to her apartment, but Judy isn't home. He climbs onto a ridge on the roof of her building. His marriage isn't going well and a few years later his wife asks for a divorce. He talks to his sons and starts to cry. Twelve years later, Sean has a business meeting in Philadelphia at the Drexler Building. A young man who reminds him of his son gets in the elevator with him. The elevator gets stuck. The young man is very scared, but Sean calms him down. Then it starts and the man gets out on the 64th floor. Sean goes on to the 66th floor. That night Sean goes over his entire childhood and remembers the day in 1942 when his father showed up unexpectedly, took him home from school, washed the windows, and carried him out on the windowsill. He remembers looking down at the cracks in the sidewalks. Here, in the darkness, he can see the cracks in the sidewalk from more than 40 years ago. He feels no fear--only astonishment.

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